On Monday, our fifth day of vacation and second full day in Seattle, we hit up one of my favorite places in the world: downtown Seattle.

The day started with breakfast of bagels and morning TV shows:

Then we loaded up the car, with John and John’s dad in the front and me and the kids in the back.

Our first stop was my favorite thing in Seattle, Public Market. John’s dad works near this place, so we were able to park in his office building’s garage for free and walk a couple blocks here. The last time we were in Seattle (about four years ago), it poured rain. Today was sunny and warmish.

I made sure we got our Daily Dozen donuts. There is maybe nothing better than a paper sack full of warm, yummy mini donuts.

Some of the sights:

Another favorite stopping point was the Confectional, a cheesecake shop.

Elizabeth drinking a tiny cup of warm sipping chocolate, which was really good and maybe even worth the $1.

We got some cheesecakes to take home.

For lunch John’s dad took us to one of his favorite lunchtime spots, which was a mixture of pizza/Italian and Mexican food. John and I laughed about it later, that out of all the world-class eating spots in downtown Seattle, this place was probably the worst. Definitely not the best food and we’re still not sure why John’s dad eats there every week. But OK.

After lunch we decided to buy tickets for the famous “Ride the Duck” tour. Lisa, our sister-in-law in Richland, said that her kids went to Seattle on a field trip and that the duck boat ride was the highlight of the trip. It’s an amphibious bus that goes on land and then into the water. John and his dad stood in line for tickets while I tried to keep the kids entertained.

It’s such a popular tour that we had to wait a few hours until the next tour became available. To fill the time we took the train from where we were to the Space Needle. There’s a children’s discovery museum there that we spent a couple hours at. Boy, the kids had fun!

We got the kids into an art session, which they all really liked. Each kid has their own style of artwork.

Our tour time was coming up quick, so we had to go, but we stopped for some ice cream first. This stand is outside the space needle and features homemade ice cream. We nearly missed our tour, but it was so good! Wesley’s cone was chocolate and dripping all over the place. The reason I don’t have pictures is I was too busy wiping him up all the time.

Getting ready for our tour.

One signature of the Ride-the-Duck tour is the drivers wear silly hats, many of them, throughout the tour. Carissa had a fun time giggling at our driver’s many silly hats. I didn’t get photos of them all. I think her favorite was when he put underwear on his head!

Lovely Seattle waterfront.

This is the aquarium we visited last time when Wes and Carissa were much younger.

This is new from the last time we were in Seattle. It’s like the London Eye.

Beautiful Carissa.

Wes fell asleep for a little while. But it couldn’t last long, because downtown Seattle is LOUD. I think it was sirens that woke him up.

Getting ready to enter the water as a boat. This was pretty cool!

Another boat near us:

Seattle. The water was beautiful, and busy. We saw lots of boats, both big and small, plus kayaks like this one.

There are tons of houseboats lining the Seattle harbor, including the famous one from “Sleepless in Seattle.” I thought I took a picture or video of it but I can’t find it. Only a certain number of houseboats are allowed at a given time, so they are prime property. The tour guide said they are coming up with crazy new designs, such as houseboats with basements, and windows in the basement.

We took the monorail back to where we were parked. It exits into a small shopping mall. As we passed a candy store I pointed out to John a whole wall of Hello Kitty stuff. He must have been feeling pretty generous, because he took her inside and let her pick out something to take home. She was a happy girl.